MinistryWatch’s Top 10 Stories for the Month of October
The following stories had the most page views at the MinistryWatch website during the month of October. We present them here in a “countdown” format, from 10 to 1. The first few sentences of each story are reproduced below. To read the entire story, click on the link. To read the Top 25 stories of 2023, click here.
By Kim Roberts. A professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, is advocating that Congress narrow the definition of church associations, a status that allows a nonprofit to avoid filing an informational Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Over the last decade, an increasing number of Christian nonprofit organizations have applied for and been granted the association of church status by the IRS.
By Bob Smietana. A former professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary pleaded guilty Oct. 16 to lying to the FBI during an investigation into sexual abuse. Matt Queen, the pastor of Friendly Avenue Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, had pleaded not guilty earlier this year when charged with obstruction of justice for actions taken when he was a professor and interim provost at Southwestern, a Southern Baptist Convention school in Texas.
By Kim Roberts. Zachary Radcliff, 29, the former youth and music director at Oakwood Church in Ypsilanti, Michigan, was arraigned on October 20 for 11 felony charges, including criminal sexual conduct, child sexual abuse, and the use of a computer or the internet to commit a crime. Radcliff, the son of Oakwood’s Senior Pastor Frank Radcliff, had served at the church for almost eight years, the elder Radcliff told MinistryWatch.
By Bob Smietana. In recent years, author and radio host Eric Metaxas and other conservative Christian supporters of Donald Trump have compared themselves to the famed German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer—who was put to death, in part, for participating in a plan to assassinate Adolph Hitler. In a recent interview on Flashpoint, a Christian television talk show on the Victory network, both Metaxas—author of a bestselling biography of Bonhoeffer—and the show’s host called the current election a “Bonhoeffer moment” and urged Christians to rise up and oppose evil.
By Kim Roberts. Gateway Church, headquartered in the Dallas suburb of Southlake, has been facing a multitude of allegations and controversies after Cindy Clemishire’s sexual abuse allegations against founding pastor Robert Morris led to his resignation. Now, a class-action lawsuit has been filed against the church in federal court by members who are concerned about the stewardship of the money they contributed.
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By Kathryn Post. The ad, the result of a $1 million ad campaign by Evangelicals for Harris, is now the subject of a potential lawsuit from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. In late September and early October, Evangelicals for Harris, a grassroots campaign of the political action committee Evangelicals for America, said it received multiple letters from lawyers representing the association, including a “cease and desist” letter. An Oct. 2 letter, sent from outside counsel and obtained by RNS, threatened to sue Evangelicals for Harris on the basis of copyright infringement.
By Tony Mator. Battered by months of criticisms for controversial staff guidance on how to handle LGBTQ-identifying students, a major evangelical campus ministry is distancing itself from a controversial curriculum. Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) will be removing its Compassionate and Faithful curriculum by the end of the year, according to reporting by WORLD.
By Kim Roberts. A storm is brewing in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) and a “meaningful group of churches” are considering other options, according to Pastor Nate Atwood, the pastor of St. Giles Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C. Atwood has been involved in the EPC since 1988 and held several leadership roles, including serving as moderator of the General Assembly. He says there is a “crisis of confidence in the current stated clerk, moderator, and leadership team” after an overture concerning same-sex-attracted pastors never made it to the floor of the General Assembly this summer.
By Tony Mator. Faith Church, a multi-campus church in Lafayette, Indiana, announced it has removed its senior pastor, Steve Viars, from leadership due to circumstances surrounding his recent separation from his wife. “The pastors and deacons of Faith Church requested and accepted the resignation of our leader of 37 years, Pastor Steve Viars, on 10/17/2024. His marriage condition does not meet the biblical qualifications for being an elder,” the church said in an online statement.
By Kim Roberts. Southern Methodist University (SMU) has been seeking to assert its autonomy from the United Methodist Church since 2019. The Texas Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of the case to determine whether the university can cut its ties with the United Methodist Church’s South Central Jurisdictional Conference (SCJC), which runs the church’s congregations in eight states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Missouri and Nebraska.